Role Conflicts and Rogue States: U.S. Post-Cold War Relations with North Korea, Cuba, Syria, and Iran

In this paper we use role theory to analyze U.S. relations with North Korea, Cuba, Syria and Iran and to critically evaluate alternative U.S. foreign policy strategies towards these states. We highlight the self-fulfilling prophecy as a causal mechanism in the role theory construct and we show how U.S. leaders’ initial misperceived roles of these states led to unintended roles by which they were made to become rogues. By using binary role theory we suggest further that this condition may be corrected by employing the role strategy of altercasting to “unmake” rogue states. We conclude with some critical remarks about the current conduct of U.S. foreign policy toward these rogue regimes.